Tested (Warriors 103, Pacers 92)

Not so long ago, a big, physical team with low-post offensive threats was a guaranteed loss for the Warriors. It wasn’t just a question of the Warriors lacking their own big bodies for match-ups — although they usually were at a distinct disadvantage — it often ended up an issue of will. The Warriors would settle for what the more physical team gave them on offense, hoping that they’d hit the jackpot from the perimeter while their opponent typically feasted in the paint with high percentage looks. They rarely tried to attack the basket, were willing to concede the rebounding war without firing a shot and were generally pushed around the court. In other words: soft. But Saturday night against the Pacers, things were different.

Even a sluggish Pacers team on the end of a back-to-back is a frightening prospect for this Bogut-less Warriors team. There’s no 4/5 combo in the League with more ways to score than David West and Roy Hibbert. The Warriors successfully won with small ball against the offensively-challenged Denver bigs, but it would take more than grittiness to knock off the Pacers. The Warriors managed a decisive, rousing 103-92 victory against the Pacers because both the bigs and smalls stepped up their games. The Warriors refused to be intimidated, attacked the Pacers head-on and ultimately rode the momentum generated by their aggressiveness to victory.

Bigs first: Festus Ezeli logged his second highest minute count of the year, and the Warriors needed all of them. His willingness to bang bodies with Roy Hibbert and Ian Mahinmi was essential to setting the tone of the game. The Pacers realized early on that they weren’t going to have a free pass to the rim. David Lee also deserves credit for holding his ground — but the Warriors’ coaching staff deserves a big assist. Recognizing that Lee on West in single coverage was a recipe for disaster, the team repeatedly brought a guard down to double, frustrating West for the early part of the game. Overall, it was the Warriors knocking the Pacers off their usual game with physical play — not the once-typical opposite.

While the Warriors’ bigs rose to the occasion, the smaller players had an equally significant role. Rather than settling for whatever shots the Pacers would give them, the Warriors (Curry and Jack particularly) repeatedly penetrated and probed the Pacers’ interior. Sometimes they successfully found a high-percentage look, as with the beautiful drop-offs to Landry around the basket. Other times, the Warriors’ aggressiveness earned them trips to the line (19 to the Pacers’ 20). Big men scrambling to regain position following penetration are more likely to foul (Lee and Landry had more than half of the Warriors free throws and were perfect for the night). And even when the penetration didn’t result in an interior shot, it forced the Pacers’ defense to collapse inside, leaving Curry and Thompson open repeatedly from around the arc. Overall, it was the inside-outside game the Warriors had talked about for years but so rarely implemented successfully. Klay Thompson had a blistering first half and Jarrett Jack managed an even hotter second half. Both benefitted from the spacing, ball movement and movement off the ball of the Warriors offense as a whole. This was a long way from the stagnant stand-around offense of the preseason. The results — shooting 47.5% against the team with the lowest opponent field goal percentage in the league — show just how far the Warriors have come in a little over a month.

Every Warriors player logging significant minutes found a way to contribute, even if it didn’t show up in the box score. Draymond Green is rightfully becoming a fan favorite with his energy, intensity and intelligence. He was a bowling ball in the interior, bouncing off big bodies to provide help defense and close open lanes. His baseline defense is a thing of beauty. At least twice he smothered a baseline drive with excellent foot work and anticipation. He’s becoming an instant momentum changer for the team, and is a big reason we’re not seeing the crippling runs by opponents that sunk this team so often last year. Harrison Barnes’ toughness may have been less obvious. Barnes drew the assignment of guarding the always-tough Paul George and shut him out over 29 minutes. Although Barnes himself was an offensive afterthought most of the night, he held his focus on defense and delivered the performance the team needed.

Finally, while “veteran presence” is one of those meaningless sports terms thrown around so easily, the Warriors saw concrete examples of it on Saturday. It was Jarrett Jack re-focusing after losing the ball to back-court pressure and going on to knock down jumper after jumper in response (the three-quarters court heave was just icing on the top). David Lee didn’t have the offensive night he enjoyed Thursday, but his burst of energy tipping rebounds and banging bodies when he re-entered the game in the fourth quarter helped stabilize the Warriors during a rocky stretch. Carl Landry, as he’s done all season, allowed the Warriors to diversify their offensive attack. His six fourth-quarter points kept the Warriors moving forward once the Pacers defense clamped down. Last year, those moments were precisely where they would stumble and suffer game-killing scoreless spells. The Warriors’ young talent is reason to hope for the future, but the veterans are making the difference in the present.

Adam Lauridsen

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RP, nbageek has basic, per 48 minutes, and WP stats for players and teams. You can use the player comparison engine to review comparative stats (including league average for a player’s position).

You can get player shot charts from nba.com’s statscube. I use the team versus player option (e.g. GSW and Curry) to see how the team performs with individual players on the floor versus as on the bench.

You can use 82games.com to get lots of useful info including the percentage of different types of scoring attempts (e.g. 91% of Curry’s shots are jump shots, 94% for Jack, and 81% for Thompson) and the percentage of scoring that is assisted (e.g. Curry 46%, Jack 38%, Thompson 81%).

Basket-ball reference.com also has plenty of interesting stats, including PER, usage, assists, and turnover percentages.

dr_john

b’what

The sum can be greater than the parts, and last night Orlando did to the Lakers more than what the Warriors gave to Indiana.

They even dredged some time up for Kyle O’Quinn—their Ezeli lite. And speaking of Ezeli, he of the 37% FT shooting, if he’s on the floor mid-4th quarter you’re likely to see some Haq’a Festus. Vaughn will do it.

Anyway, I share your hopes. Usually the worst teams win above one game in four . As I noted above, from last night, Vucevic and Davis can be a load and if Barnes can shut Afflalo down the Dubs have a great chance.

I hid Thompson on Harkless, hope Jackson does the same.

bryanhsiao

Eric,
I am not a hardcore footer fan but I really really dont understand about your comments about Alex Smith’s “whining”

it’s what it is. It sucks to let someone take your position because you got injured. Alex was also doing pretty good before the injury.

Even Kaep said Alex Smith helped him alot with many wise advises even when Kaep was starting.

Andre Miller said similar things before. He said he refused to play behind a PG inferior than him.
He refused to be a backup in Portland and beat the PG in front of him point and square.

No biggie.
Alex smith did not do a Al Harrington/SJackson.
He literally just says it’s what it is—> sucks.

What’s the rage?

believewhat

dr.,

So far dubs won every game they were supposed to win except for Kings. Affalo can be handful, I still expect Barnes and Ezeli(and Jenkins if he gets a chance) contribute more than before for this game. I hope Jackson doesn’t overplay anyone, as I said before, not necessary.

dr_john

sartre/RickP

Add Hoopdata.com to the list, many different measures listed side by side, and they have the best data on draft pick holdings and trades.

Salaries are best now at hoopsworld, used to be the shamsports link via hoopdata but it’s been dumbed down somewhat. hoopshype salaries displays well but can be inaccurate.

EvanZ put out the best NBA 101 Stats Primer a couple years back, it’s google searchable and links outward to all of the various stats systems.

Meanwhile, the current nbageek article is a continuing restatement of Patrick Minton’s disdain for George Karl’s player floortime decisions. You get a lot of Wolves/Nuggets articles from him, and they ask good questions. In Play Your Best Five he reflects some on the Warriors We Believe group.

RickP

Sartre, Thanks. I was wondering what I was going to do with all my spare time.

I didn’t see a link in nbageek.

I used nba.com to find that Curry is 9th in minutes and 13th in FTM. He’s 19th in FTA. This is among all guards. Maybe that’s fair, since he plays some 2.

Apparently, he’s better than I thought. Thanks for the tip.

sartre

RP, when you go to nbageek click on tools for the comparison engine.

Thanks for the tips, dr_john. I’m familiar with Evanz’ fine stats primer and have used hoopsworld on occasions too. Like you say the nbageek posts are often very informative even though they rarely focus on the dubs.

EastBay Fan

I wonder if both teams would be interested and if the salaries work: Gasol for David Lee & Jefferson???
Possibly a win win trade…

sartre

The numbers work according to espn trade machine. Lee arguably suits D’Antoni’s system more than Gasol. But he has two more years on his contract than Gasol and the dubs are a Pacific rival. Gasol is older and so far Lee is having the better season across nearly every major category. It would unload the dubs of budget being tied up in more years of Lee when his older age may see declining production.

bryanhsiao

“Curry leads the league in scoring in the last five minutes of games within five points with 43, and that’s despite pedestrian shooting numbers from the field and beyond the arc. Where he’s making his mark is at the free throw line. Curry has made (16) and attempted more free throws (19) in the clutch than any player in the NBA, a sign of his confidence and aggression as the game comes down to the wire. There’s no reason why he can’t continue this type of late-game success, a huge development for a Warriors squad that needs the proverbial “closer.”

“Golden State has the league’s third best clutch net rating in the NBA at plus-20.0. Given Curry’s play and the team’s disposition as a whole, you’d think that would be owed mostly to the offensive end. You’d be wrong. The Warriors are seventh in both offensive and defensive ratings in crunch time, a fact that speaks to the newfound balance of this team. Scoring and getting stops at a top 10 rate? That’s a recipe for clutch success if there ever was one.”

And here’s a tip: Don’t use quotation marks around words a person DIDN’T say. That’s an idiot’s tactic.

BTW, if you thot I was rooting against Kap yesterday, you are even dumber than your jejune prose makes you seem. (Hint: Take a look @83, above.)

In other words, get a clue, L’il Guy.

coltraning

@ JSl

Yeah, I would not mind at all if Curry has some more “quiet” 20/10 games 🙂

Football is not my main game at all, but a casual observation that Kaep seems to struggle with crowd noise in getting his count heard and looks kind of frantic and flustered in those situations, sometimes having to call seemingly needless timeouts. Makes sense – he is a second year player who has now started 3 games. From what I can see, the Niners have been majorly let down by their kicker Akers this year (odd considering what a terrific year he had last year), and would be 10-2 if he made his kicks in the 2 OT games…

jsl

col: Right you are; but Kap can only get better as he plays more. And despite his glaring mistakes yesterday, the D was so good == they gave up a FG and a two-point conversion before the OT FG — we should have won anyway.

So, I’d lay the blame on the GRo-Harbaugh play-calling, the OL, Kap, and Akers. In that order. If any of the four were incrementally better, we win.

I put most of it on Harbaugh, because they were just giving us slant after slant after slant — pressuring the QB and dropping back to prevent the long pass — and we should have kept that going in Q4 and OT.

At least Kap now knows how Alex felt in the red zone when we’d run three and kick a FG. Very frustrating.

Blazers down 18 with 5 minutes left forced overtime and pushed on to the win.

Jfish

Will Jackson realized that he needs an active defensive body in the middle, i.e., Ezeli. Too many quick, active bigs for Orlando.. need a big body to change some shots….

Jfish

Being OUTREBOUNDED….

Jfish

10 – 2 Offensive rebounds at the half…. Mark Jackson, you have a big… going small plays into Orlando’s game… They can’t match Ezeli…

Jfish

Warriors TOO SMALL…. Being out rebounded going into 4th.. OR 72 69…

Need some size…

slimman

Wtb a rebound. Wtb a big man. Coaching is losing us this game.

Jfish

How about Bazemore on Reddick? Thompson isn’t scoring…

Has Jackson become Nelson… small ball offense… get some D in there.

Jfish

This is a COACHING LOSS. In love with SMALL… No Substitution, no adjustment by Jackson….

How can Orlando have more energy when they’re on the 2nd night of a back to back…

Bad, bad loss…

slimman

So far we have 3 losses that should not have been, and I’m not including the Denver OT game. Coach went small at the end of the 3rd all the way out and it cost us the game. What a frustrating loss.

El Topo

Missed last 2 games and now I watch and dubs lay a turd…

bryanhsiao

Really frustrating game…
Every time Ezeli came in, we stopped the bleeding and had that inside presence on covering the cutter.

Lee’s D and help D was atrocious and Mark Jack was just horrible in refusing to put Ezeli back in.
Vucevic got 6 O rebs, 15 total and 6 easy baskets (some off of those 6 O rebounds. )

Big Baby got whatever he wanted when Ezeli was not in the game.

No adjustment on shooting outside shots the whole night.

Without Curry tonight, we would get blown out.
Without Ezeli protecting the interior, we got owned in the paint and then once JJ Reddick got hot, we had no answer.

Or did we but that guy is on the bench? Bazemore cannot even guard him for a min?
Everyone at the game knew we needed Ezeli in but apparently coaches did not.

Really pathetic coaching effort.

48 -36 outscored in the paint.

Coach “I just cannot accept less efforts”
Maybe you should think about putting the guy with more efforts in? Like Ezeli? Green? Play some bigs together.

Ezeli, Lee, Green together?

nope, none of that.

bryhsiao

The points in the paint
36 vs 48 points in the paint
15:47Mins of Ezeli 2 fouls while Lee got 5 fouls and Davis feasted on him.

When Ezeli was in, the defense got much better and once he got out, magic went on a couple runs.
Thanks coach. GET a clue.

moto

the ‘honeymoon’ phase of the season ended tonight. Den and Mem already demonstrated the vulnerable points to exploit — teams that can step up the tempo effectively should do so at every opportunity, and if they combine it with strong inside play the woeyrs can’t match up. many of the better wings are too quick for thompson to cover, and the well coached teams with ball movement will expose him. good to see the young coach who’s paid his dues after a journeyman’s n.b.a. career give the preacher a lesson.

Jfish

COACHING LOSS…

If the game isn’t going your way, the coach should make ADJUSTMENTS….

I though I was watching Don Nelson… Jackson has fallen in LOVE with SMALL ball. Orlando has too many QUICK Bigs (problems for D. Lee)! Harkless, Davis, Vucevic, Ayon, Nicholson are very active players. They needed to CLOG the middle… with Ezeli or Biendrins.

The best stretch for W’s was when Ezeli was in… then Orlando was “one and done”…. W’s have only lost once when out rebounding… they were even, but LOST Offensive rebounds… TOO MANY SECOND CHANCE POINTS.

Redick was killing W’s in 4th, why not TRY Bazemore your defensive stopper on him, or Jenkins (stronger, quicker)… Klay was giving you nothing… The W’s will need to TRUST their bench…

Please, somebody call Jackson out on the small ball, it works when W’s have energy, effort and hustle on teams (see Indiana on back-to-back), it is NOT a way to play All the time against EVERY team.

Orlando’s SMALL’S were beating W’s smalls, but were LOSING to our BIGS!!!!

Sad, sad… missed opportunity for a WIN. It’s on Jackson, who has done a good job this year, but seems to be falling in love with the SMALL lineup.

Nuff Sed… I hope this is a LESSON for future games Rather than a TREND…

Our Team

Jacque Vaughn very impressive coaching tonight. MJ not so much. We needed more Ezeli for D and rebounding. And we needed a TO to straighten out the D off of screens to deal with Redick before he totally killed us in Q4.

When Thompson is cold like tonight, MJ feels he has to keep Curry on the court a long time and play him off the ball for scoring. Problem is, the O usually doesn’t move as fluidly when Curry’s not handling it. Plus, Curry ends up with 45 minutes and tired down the stretch. Catch 22. Rush’s absence really hurts us on nights like tonight.

Curry is really figuring it out at pg. He looks like he can go 25 and 15 if you play him full time at pg.
Hey, how about that Barnes block on the breakaway!!

sartre

OT, you’re right about missing Rush and over-playing Curry because there is no specialist SG backup available that MJ is willing to play. This was also a game in which they really missed Bogut’s ability to bang and protect the rim. The team battled hard on defense but there were too many easy baskets surrendered inside. Ezeli was +6 and I think that on this occasion the single game +/- stat reflected his value.

Clyde Frazier

Small ball got abused by big Baby D ball. Who can guard Redick? That was the key and the W’s (Klay, Jack and Curry) were caught napping.

MJ insists on playing his way, you win some but you’ll lose against a good coach.

Will the W’s get 2 wins on the road? We’ll see.

coltraning

Have not read the other posts yet on this game, so sharing this and then will check it out. I watched this game with music on tape delay and wanted to check the box score to confirm my eyes. My impression had been that the Ws did very well when Ezeli was out there and were outplayed badly the rest of the time Sure enough. Ws when Ezeli was on floor? Plus 6. Rest of the game? Minus 14. And yet, once again, despite the Ws being ABUSED by Davis and the other Orlando bigs, Jackson saw fit to only give Ezeli 16 minutes. That is truly bad in-game coaching. Like I said, I am baffled.

Curry played superbly, and Barnes and Lee had their moments (although Davis destroyed Lee), but other than that, it really felt that the Ws though they would get the win from just showing up. Thompson was particularly poor tonight, and couldn’t even come close to covering Redick.

One game only, but the pigheaded refusal of Jackson to play Ezeli more than the first 8 minutes of the 2nd 1/2 was really f***d up. And after all the nice things we said about his coaching. Oh, and did he really not give Curry ANY rest in the 2nd 1/2? Wow…

coltraning

Yup, seems like a general consensus. I guess Mark Jackson was the only one who did not notice the Ws played considerably better with Ezeli in there. I am telling you, the man does not have a spontaneous bone in his body. Go back and watch how he played. Very competent, smart and safe, and utterly by the books. He played more like some kid who was raised in a Kansas farm than a smart NYC-style player, which is where he grew up and also where he started in the NBA. I fear he is coaching the same way. HEY COACH: OPEN YOUR EYES and throw away your preset rotations, Sometimes THINGS CHANGE!!! This is not a game the Ws came ready to play, but with better coaching decisions, it was stil a very winnable game.

coltraning

Just looked at the stats for Curry. 25/11/2 and only 1 TO. And he played excellent D tonight. Confirms again what the eyes saw. He was superb, what a waste of a truly top level game. Wake up, Jackson. Your obtuse and oak-headed insistence on sticking with some thing that was not working was pathetic…

sartre

From twitter:

Redick: “The problem with staying small is then you start getting into junk defense and switches and maybe you lose your man.”

Redick (cont.): “I think that actually helped us. They were always having to put someone small on Glenn and that created a lot of problems.”

coltraning

@ Sartre

and so f****ng obvious and frustrating. I doubt there was anyone watching other than Mark Jackson who didn’t figure that out, about 3 minutes into the 4th quarter. Sometimes Jackson strikes me as either very very stubborn or not terribly smart. But hey coach, let’s haul out the cliches about how we didn’t want it enough. I get so tired of that hackneyed crap. Hey Jackson, no matter how much you “want it” you will never be able to guard Lebron James at your age (actually at any age) so how about trying a little, oh I don’t know, coaching? Like putting the center back in who actually helped your team outplay the other team in the 16 minutes you let him play. Mama, there goes that man…

Tired

Nightmare for Ws:

A team that sticks with its bigs and doesn’t get sucked into playing small ball.

I agree with what has been said: COACHING MALFUNCTION

Some teams are going to be able to do this to the Ws if we don’t adjust. There are some teams with a lot of bigs who don’t do as well, but this team was very disciplined and kept at it until they won. Ws will wear down their ‘chosen’ players before this season is over if they keep this up, too.

I feel very TIRED

moto

lee after the loss : ‘I think we’re better than Orlando’. if a .500 team without a day off travels to your court and beats you handily, that suggests you might also be a .500 team.

nelliesbiggestfan

denial is a wonderful thing. If you want to believe that I’m the one who is obsessed with smallball go ahead. But I actually went back to the threads after the home loss to the magic and read every post.

Post after post after post, dozens of them focused solely on MJ’s choice to play Lee and Landry up front insead of playing Ezeli or beans at center. It was not only the center of the conversation, it was the only conversation. Nothing else mattered. Everyone just flipped out thinking MJ was anothe nellie. No one even cared how the players played. I could not count the times I saw the word “smallball”.

“brilliant” poetry doesn’t change that. If you want the truth go back to that thread and read your own hysterical posts. Then get back to me so we can discuss it.